Sean Penn enters Oscar race

The nominations for the annual Screen Actors Guild awards were released on December 20 and they could hardly have been more different to recent critics' award nominations, including the Golden Globes. There was no mention of the British film Atonement (which lead the GGs with seven nominations) or the Tim Burton musical Sweeney Todd (four GGs) while Sean Penn's Into the Wild received four nominations, proving that the actor-director is much admired by his peers.

Into the Wild is based on the real story of Christopher McCandless, an idealistic college graduate who abandons his easy suburban life and takes to the road, coming to a tragic end in the Alaskan wilderness. It is one of five films nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Motion Picture Cast, a category unique to the SAGs and seen as the equivalent of best film award. The others were 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, Hairspray and No Country for Old Men.

Emile Hirsch (above right with Kristen Stewart), the 22-year-old actor who plays McCandless, is nominated for best actor while veteran actor Hal Holbrook and Catherine Keener, who play characters he meets along the way, are up for best supporting actor and actress. (Continued below)

The Screen Actors Guild awards can be an indicator of how the Academy Awards will go - because actors make up the largest voting bloc in the Academy. Last year, for instance, both Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker won the big acting awards from the Guild and then again at the Oscars.

The SAGs ceremony takes place on Sunday January 27 – sandwiched between the Golden Globes a fortnight earlier and the Oscars four weeks later. If the Hollywood writers' strike is not settled soon, it may be the only one of the three to actually take place.

SAG has reached an agreement with the Writers Guild of America for one of its members to write the script for the televised ceremony. But the Writers Guild rejected a request from Golden Globe organisers to allow striking writers to work on that show. The Oscar organisers have not yet asked for a similar waiver but face the same prospect. If either show attracts protests by striking writers, it is likely stars would stay away rather than cross picket lines.